


Sweet Caroline

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Mick finds the Kryptonians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 18:44:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8811937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: On Earth-1, there's no Superman or Supergirl.
Mick Rory knows why.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Alien Ducklings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8787358) by [grimmfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmfairy/pseuds/grimmfairy). 



> Totally inspired by grimm-fairy's fantastic prompt, found here: http://grimm-fairy.tumblr.com/post/154020433970/before-i-fall-asleep-and-forget - that the reason there is no Supergirl or Superman on Earth-1 is because the wrong people found them first and put them in a top secret military research facility, and on a trip with the Waverider, Mick finds them and they imprint on him. 
> 
> Grimm-fairy is also writing it straight out, and you should all go read it! I just couldn't resist doing my own little twist on it.
> 
> ...this is also the closest I will ever come to a song-fic, which is not a genre of fic I usually like.

Mick looks at her, flying there in the air, free and happy and having never known fear. He thinks of Len, and his heart hurts in his chest.

" _That's_ why they call me Supergirl," she says with a grin.

Mick drops his eyes to the crest on her chest, knowing that the Legends would assume that he's trying to see her boobs. She wears it openly, what Caroline had once wistfully called the crest of the House of El. Mick takes a minute to memorize it as it is rather than in terrible sketches. Caroline’s no artist. 

He wouldn't say he was much of an artist himself, but he could reproduce still images pretty well. Len had insisted he learn, and years and years of trying had made him not half bad at it.

Mick just needs a little time to concentrate, and he'll be able to bring it home to the ducklings.

Just a little time -

\----------------------------------------------

"You had to tell them that I was a genius," Len complains good-naturedly, nodding a greeting to a pair going the other direction. They nod back absently.

"You said to talk you up," Mick points out. He's not worried. Len _is_ a genius. "That was the whole idea."

"Yeah, yeah, you charm 'em, then I slip in for negotiations once they're in a good mood," Len says, eyes bright but intensely focused. He takes jobs seriously, even ones that require this much levity. Best way not to look like you're forcing it is not to force it, Len says. 

It'd be more impressive if Mick didn't know for a fact that 90% of Len's homily wisdom comes from movies and televisions shows that he drinks in like a thirsty man needs water. 

Still, one day Len's going to make his mark on the world, and as far as Len was concerned, Mick's going to be right there at his shoulder. 

Mick's taking a little longer to convince. 

"That's why we make excellent partners," Len adds, unsurprisingly.

Mick grunts. Len had moved past subtle hints a while back without the slightest hint of shame. Mick still wasn't sure that he was putting in half the weight that he felt was necessary for a real partnership of equals, and he was even less sure he wanted to commit to something serious like a partnership the way that Len meant the word.

Oh, sure, Len claimed they could back out at any time, maybe even convinced himself he meant it, but Mick didn't believe him. By now, he could identify Len's lies better than Len could.

A full on partnership? They're only in their twenties. They've barely started to make a name for themselves; they haven't gotten anywhere yet. Sure, they work well together and have for years, off and on, but there’s a difference between that and being _partners_. Sharing each take and each job, taking the good and the bad together. It's more serious than a marriage, because a marriage theoretically has the option of divorce down the line. More specifically, divorce that doesn't result in a bullet in the brain. Mick knows that if he agrees, Len will never let him go, not unless Mick drives him away, and that’s just a lot of commitment, okay? A lot of responsibility. Len's going to be big, Mick's sure, and secretly he doesn't want to drag him down. 

Mick's only ever going to be an arsonist, after all. He's not like Len; he doesn't have a family to motivate him to go bigger and better.

"I still can't believe we're _here_ ," he responds, ignoring Len's last words. He nods at the government facility they're breaking into. Len palmed them passes from some random people exiting the building, and it was Christmas Eve, so barely anyone was working and even fewer were paying attention.

Len had spent two solid minutes bitching with some guy in the elevator about having to work late today of all days, the guy nodding sympathetically, and when Len fumbled for his pass - since he only had the pass, not the palmprint - the guy laughed and let them in.

And now they were in, because the Santini main man, son of the Don, had laughed at Mick's jokes and even harder at Len's offers and had joked in front of all his men that if they could get him the trade secret technology the government used for tracking mafia circles, the one that was hoarded by the military lab up here in the ass-end of nowhere, he'd owe them a favor instead of visa versa.

Len had coolly accepted it as the rejection it was, but outside he'd been gleeful. "The Santinis are big on honor," he'd told Mick, "and despite everyone knowing it was a joke, if we pull it off, he'll have to keep his word, and a Family favor's as good as gold. Better, in some cases."

And so now they're here.

"Yeah, and there's the file storage room," Len says. "Let's duck in and grab it."

Len goes to the filing cabinet, since he has the fingers for lock-picking and a quick eye for names, and Mick starts wandering around since his job is just to keep an eye out and cover Len's back.

Finding the right file takes some time - the stuff they're looking for isn't exactly top priority for a lab like this, they just got it because they had a military presence - and Mick is seriously bored.

Eventually, he notices an outline of a door behind a filing cabinet and shoves the filing cabinet aside. Maybe it's an old break room. He could do with something to eat. 

He hears a distant alarm sounding, but muffled strangely, like it's through layers of soundproofing or something.

"Len?" he calls over his shoulder.

"I hear it," Len replies. "Photographing now; gimme two minutes, thirteen seconds."

Mick nods in agreement, since the alarms are still distant. They don't seem focused on him and Len at all, actually; more like a warning bell or something. An experiment gone wrong, maybe?

So, out of lack of other things to do, Mick opens the door to the break room.

It's not a break room. It's a sterile white corridor, like you see in hospitals and horror movies, and shuffling down it at full (if impotent) speed are two children. They're thin and malnourished and covered in bandages and track marks, their hair is long and matted, and they're terrified. The girl’s a teenager, with hints of beauty in there beyond the terror, and the boy she’s helping along is no older than five. There are tear-tracks on their faces and red marks around their wrists and ankles that look like they were left by cuffs, or straps. 

Mick stares at them, having opened a door in the side of the wall - they were heading towards the big doors at the end of the hallway - and they stare at him, fear and resignation in their eyes.

"There they are!" someone shouts from behind them. Three guys in lab coats are running up towards them, holding syringes.

"Oh no," the girl whispers, her head bowing with familiar defeat.

"I can't believe you let them escape," one of the scientists is lecturing the other. "Don't you realize the danger if the specimens got out to the outside world?"

Yeah, Mick's heard enough.

He reaches up and pulls out his piece - he sees the younger boy mouth 'gun' as if it was a recognition challenge - and he shoots the scientists. Clean and straight to the head, all those hours training his aim with Len watching in amazement and keeping going after he was tired just to get more of that amazement paying off.

"You shot them," the girl says blankly.

"Sure did," Mick says. "You wanna get out of here?"

They both nod.

"Good. Follow me."

They follow.

Len meets them at the door. "I heard shots," he says, face tight with worry, looking Mick up and down for injuries, and then he notices the kids. "Picked up some ducklings?"

"Docs called them specimens," Mick says. He's still angry about that.

Len nods. "Okay," he says, adapting fast. "Break room's this way - I'll see if there's any spare clothing there and meet you at the front. Forty three seconds."

He goes, and Mick scoops the boy into his arms - his leg is hurt, as is hers; that's why they were hobbling, it looks like the docs did it deliberately to try and prevent escapes - and ushers the girl towards the place they came in.

Len sets off several fire alarms, and they exit in the chaos, reaching the car in minutes. Mick puts the boy in the back, Len being a sneak and taking the opportunity to get into the driver’s seat even though he _knows_ Mick’s a better driver. 

"They'll set alarms, barrier points," the girl whispers to Mick as he helps her into the car. "We've gotten this far before -"

"What's your name?" Mick asks, because he needs to think of her as something other than 'the girl', just for himself. He's been institutionalized. He knows how dehumanizing it is. He knows how dehumanizing your real name can be, too, but he’s good with nicknames. He’ll think of something. 

"I - it's Kara."

"We can't call you that," Len says apologetically. "Too unique. Not anywhere where they'd notice."

"How about Caroline?" Mick asks. "Just as a cover. Kinda sounds like Kara."

"Caroline?"

“Yeah, you know - _hands touching hands_ ,” Mick sings under his breath. “ _Reaching out, dear lord – touching me, touching you –_ ”

“ _Sweet Caroline_ ,” Len joins in in chorus, singing absently as he drives them towards the exit. “ _Good times never seemed so good. I’ve been inclined to believe they never would, but now…_ ”

Kara giggles, the boy joining in a second later, hiding his face in her side.

“What?” Len asks her, pretending to be affronted. “My singing not good?”

“You’re both very strange,” she says.

“Besides, everyone knows I’m a better singer,” Mick says cheerfully.

“You are _not_ ,” Len shoots back immediately, smile still firmly on his face, playing a clown for the audience. He has a baby sister; he knows how to do it. After long enough with Len, Mick knows how to do it, too.

Then Mick looks forward and scowls at the darkness. “They’ve put up a roadblock already,” he says.

Kara’s smile falls off her face, starting to breath hard, hyperventilating, and the boy lets out a little cry of sadness. 

“Lenny?” Mick asks, because he knows Len’s face. He knows when Len’s making plans. 

“No, I got this – Mick, I need you to drive.” He pulls over and Mick goes around to the driver’s seat. Len doesn’t get into the passenger seat, going for the back seat with the kids.

“Okay,” Len says. “You, boy, name?”

“Kal,” the kid whispers. 

“Cal?” Len says dubiously. “Really? Okay. Uh. All I’ve got is Calvin and Hobbes, so guess what, Calvin, you’re going to have to duck down on the ground by the seat, okay? You can manage that? I need you to be real quiet.”

The boy nods and ducks down. Len pulls of his winter jacket and tosses it over him. “Okay, Caroline,” he says. “I picked up a dress from the break room – can you change? Fast as you can. We’ll close our eyes.”

Caroline – Kara – nods and changes quickly. Len closes his eyes. Mick doesn’t, but he’s scanning the area. Nobody seems to have noticed they’ve stopped; it’s a cold, wet night and there’s a roadblock ahead. He’ll be able to slip back into traffic and no one will notice.

“Now what?” she whispers, starting to breath . “They’ll still know it’s me –”

“Not after I get done with you,” Len says, grinning.

Len’s grin, rarely used, is contagious with its optimism. Len talks a big game about being a realist or even (laughably) a pessimist, but he’s totally an optimist. It drives his adrenaline. He always plans for the worst, just in case, but assumes the best.

Caroline is no more able to withstand him than anyone else. She smiles back. God, she’s like, fifteen. Max. 

Len pulls off his second layer jacket and crumples it up. “Put that under your jacket,” he says to her. She complies, confused, even when he positions it low on her belly.

“Mick,” Len says, and Mick starts the car and goes. He knows what play they’re pulling.

“I won’t be able to keep quiet,” Caroline says urgently. “I’ll be too scared. Last time –”

“You be as scared as you want,” Len says. “It’ll be okay.”

They pull up to the roadblock, and Caroline’s breath comes fast. She’s terrified. Her head is lowered and she clings onto Len.

“Officer,” Mick says when the guy comes up, best dumb rich guy whine he can manage. “Is this really necessary? I’m in a rush – my buddy’s girl’s about to pop and I’m taking ‘em to the hospital.”

“About to pop?” the guy says dubiously, squinting in the back. Kara shakes and breathes too hard and moans, unable to keep her fear back.

Good thing Len’s plan accounts for that.

“Oh, crap,” the officer says. “She’s, uh, um –”

“In _labor_ , you fuckwad,” Mick says. “Can we _go_? Unless you know something about birthing –”

“Oh hell no,” the guy says. “Here, just – just pop your truck for a minute, I just need to check, and then you can be on your way –”

Mick pops the trunk. The guy gives it a cursory scan, then comes to check the back seat.

“Christmas baby,” Len says, sounding dazed and a little high on sheer nerves, grinning at the officer through the window. “Can you believe it?”

The officer melts, right there. “Yeah,” he says. “Good luck, kid. You guys can go.”

“Thanks,” Len says, and Mick puts the pedal to the metal.

“We’re out,” Caroline says blankly. “Oh my god. We’re _out_.”

“Now we drive fast but not speeding back to Central,” Len says, dropping the dazed act. “Mick…”

“Safe house on Birch?” Mick suggests. “It’s got the extra big bed, and it’s secure as hell.”

“Yeah,” Len says. He’d probably been about to suggest Mitchell, because it had extra rooms, but Mick knows that the kids won’t want to be alone. He and Len can snooze on the couch, and the kids will be comforted because there’s only one exit route. Len knows well enough to trust Mick on this one – he was once the stupid, scared kid being comforted because he was terrified his sister was dead and his arm broken forever, and Mick took good care of him then, too – and so Mick drives. 

After they get about ten minutes away, Len nods. “Okay, kid,” he says. “You can come back out.”

Calvin pokes his head up from under Len’s winter coat, the blue one with the fluffy trim. He reaches out and grabs Len’s sleeve, tugging it slightly.

Len looks at him.

“Do I get a song, too?” he asks, lisping a little the way children sometimes do. 

Len cracks a grin. “No, kid, you’ve got _better_. Whole book of cartoons, just for you. I’ll show you when we get to the house; I’m pretty sure I still have a copy.”

“You saved us,” Caroline says. “Both of you. Thank you.”

“We’re thieves,” Mick says, not wanting her to get the wrong idea or anything. “We steal things, that’s all.”

Caroline looks at him with shining eyes, so she may not have gotten the idea, but Mick’s sure they can get it into their heads eventually.

“Any ideas on the long term?” he asks Len, because they might be able to pass Caroline off as Lisa’s sister – they’re about the same age – there’s no way they can raise a five-year-old boy from scratch. They’re in and out of prison too often. Their lifestyle isn’t fit for children. 

“Not a clue,” Len says.

Mick thinks about it. “Well, Etta –” he starts.

“Etta’s full up already,” Len objects.

“No, no,” Mick says, because it’s true; his old foster mother always took in the worst of the lot, and as many as the government would let her afford. “But she ran a junkyard, and one of the customers that came by a lot, pair of farmers, they always wanted to adopt or foster, but couldn’t get the approvals. Something with a bankruptcy or something. Might work out.”

Len wrinkles his nose at the thought of living on a farm.

“Pretty far out there,” Mick notes. “Not a lot of people looking for weird things out in the farmland.”

Len nods. “They good people?”

“The Kents? They’re the best.”

“Okay, then,” Len says, nodding. “But not tonight, don’t worry,” he tells the ducklings, which look scared again. “Tonight, you’re staying with us. And even when we take you to see these folks that might be able to keep you, we’ll stick around until you’re comfortable, no matter how long it takes. Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”

“Thanks,” Caroline says. 

No, not Caroline. She said her name was Kara. Mick likes giving nicknames, but names can be important, too. 

“Don’t worry about it, Kara,” Mick starts, but then she shakes her head. “What?”

“I like Caroline,” she says shyly. 

“Kara’s your name,” Len says, as gently as he can manage. “You don’t have to give it up.”

“I’m not planning on it,” she says, and raises her head up high. It gives her something of nobility, despite the sweat and tears and unwashed hair. “My parents called me Kara Zor-El, and that is a name I hold proudly. But –” Here, she hesitates. “I told them my name, the scientists, I mean, and they called me by it. Project K. K1. Because of my name. And maybe they’ll be looking for someone named Kara. So, maybe for a little, I think I should just be Caroline instead. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

“You take whatever name you like,” Len says, looking her in the eyes. “Anything at all, and wear it with pride.”

She smiles a little. “I like Caroline.” 

Little Calvin, who’s a quiet one, nods and crawls onto the seat. He curls up into Len’s side with a soft sigh and closes his eyes. Len puts a hand on his shoulder. 

Len hates physical contact, but he likes kids more.

Caroline turns to Mick, and Mick’s sure she’s going to say something sappy and emotional and he’s _not_ having any of that, so he reaches out and flicks on the radio.

Neil Diamond’s voice rings out.

“ _Was in the spring, then spring became a summer…who’d have believed you’d come along?_ …”

Mick groans.

Len laughs.

“What?” Caroline asks, looking between the two of them. “What is it?”

“Just wait for it,” Mick says, shaking his head.

And then, as the music slowly crescendos into the chorus, Len and Mick glance at each other and break out, loud as they both can – 

“ _Sweeeeet Caroline – good times never seemed so good_ –”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

When it’s all over, the aliens and the mind control and the government agents and everything, Mick walks past Kara – Supergirl – and he can’t call her either of those names, not when she’s wearing Caroline’s face and Caroline’s grin – and says, “Hey, Skirt. Call me.”

She looks bemused.

Maybe he was being too subtle. 

He waits, patiently, for the party to continue around him – he’s never been much for large parties – and eventually she meanders out of the crowd, going back for seconds because a Kryptonian appetite is something to be feared and cooked for in large amounts, and boy does he know that on a personal level. He and Len used to run an extra heist every year just to get food money for the Kents. When she's alone by the buffet table, he goes over to her.

“Hey, Mick,” she says, smiling.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Call me, when you have a chance. We've got plenty to talk about.”

“Uh,” she says, looking awkward.

“What’s Kal-El called, in your world?” he asks, actually kind of curious.

Her back straights in surprise. “Oh!” she says, blinking. “It’s Clark – wait, you know Kal-El? How? He never told me that he jumped Earths!”

“He didn’t,” Mick says, blinking. “I’ve never seen anyone from a different Earth before. I was just wondering. Ours is called Calvin.”

She gapes at him.

“What?” he asks, snagging another cookie from the table.

“You have – on this Earth?” she hisses at him. “You have one?”

“Sure,” Mick says. “S’why I want you to call. Caroline will kill me for not looping her in when I found out she had a doppelganger, but, you know, there wasn’t that much time, and her day job keeps her pretty busy.”

“Caroline – is that me?” she asks, looking excited. “Kara, Caroline?”

“That’s right,” Mick says, popping the cookie into his mouth. “Caroline and Calvin Kent.”

Kara blinks. “Wait, the Kents? Really?” She beams. “Clark – that’s my Kal-El – he’s Clark Kent.”

“Thought you said your name was Danvers.”

“It is,” Kara says. “When I landed, my cousin – Clark – he took me to the Danvers family, and they took me in.” She tilts her head. “Why didn’t he do that on your earth?”

“Because he was three?” Mick suggests.

“Oh! Wait, I landed at the same time he did, you mean?”

“You’re the big sister,” Mick confirms, smiling fondly at the thought of his ducklings. “You guys got over the cousin thing pretty fast.”

“Then – how old am I, on your earth?” she asks. “I got stuck in the Phantom Zone and arrived on earth twenty-five years too late, so my Clark is twelve years older than me.” She wrinkles her nose. “Wait, am I, like, old?”

“Think you both got caught in the Phantom Zone,” Mick says. He stopped trying to understand Caroline’s alien babble years ago, but – to be fair – he did that with Len, too. You got to pay attention to the way they say it, not what they say. Also, he actually does know what the Phantom Zone is; it's one of the few things that made sense. “You landed about fifteen years ago, we think.”

She frowns. “You think?”

Mick can’t bring himself to tell her why they’ve never been sure and put a frown on that face. “Yeah, you let Calvin keep time,” he says. “Not the smartest idea, him being a toddler and all.”

Kara laughs. 

“Is he a journalist in your world?”

“I mean, he’s in college for journalism,” Mick offers. “Even though it’s a dying profession and all that. Photography, too. He’s really good.”

Kara beams. “He’s won a Pulitzer in my world,” she confides in him. “More than one.”

“I’m not telling him that,” Mick says. “He’ll overthink it.”

“Wow, I can’t even imagine,” Kara says. “I mean, that’s what I was _expecting_ , you know, when I left Krypton, but then I arrived and he was older and – wow. I’m the big sis. I just – wow. That’s _awesome_. Wait! What’s my job? Am I a journalist, too?”

“What’s with you and journalism?” Mick asks, bemused.

“Well, I worked as an assistant to the head of a media company,” Kara says. “Cat Grant. Do I not do that here?”

“No,” Mick says, blinking. “Caroline just got a dual doctorate in chemistry and chemical engineering, and I think she’s still debating between being a professor and getting a job making medicines for one of those pharma companies.”

Kara blinks, clearly totally taken aback.

“Len – uh, my partner – he used to give her chemistry sets, when she was a teenager,” Mick offers. He doesn’t want to explain that her interest in chemistry came around because Mick liked fire so much that chemistry was the one high school subject he could adequately tutor her in, and then she went to college and fell in love with the field. He _especially_ doesn’t want to mention that her thesis project involved inventing and patenting a brand new treatment for severe burn victims. “She liked them a lot.”

“Chemistry,” Kara says. “Making medicines.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I’m not Supergirl on this Earth,” Kara says, shaking her head a little. “Wow. That’s weird.”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure she rescues puppies from trees and stops fires and stuff,” Mick says. He has, in fact, zero doubt on the subject. Caroline always was a soft touch. At least they convinced her to wear a mask, especially after the whole Flash thing. He considers it for a second. “I’m pretty sure beating up bad guys was, like, her entire stress-management system when she was doing her thesis.”

“Wow,” Kara says. “That’s – awesome. That’s so _awesome_. I want to meet her!”

“Call me,” Mick says again, like this wasn’t where they started out. “Waverider has serious communication capabilities; I’ll connect you. I call her once a week anyhow.”

“I will,” she says, grinning widely, and that’s about when the Legends notice them chatting and descend en masse to make sure that Mick’s not pissing off the indestructible girl. 

Mick wanders off his own way after that, watching as the Flash and Arrow head off to a bar for a drink. He finds a nice corner where no one will eavesdrop on him. Then he pulls out his cellphone and dials the number from memory.

“Mick!” Caroline exclaims once she’s picked up. “I have a _doppelganger_!”

“Watched the TV, huh?” Mick replies, smirking.

“You _dick_ ,” she says fondly. “I could’ve helped!”

“You telling me you _didn’t_?”

“A few aliens got punched,” she admits. “And Cal got his over at his university. They totally think he’s the most awesome thing since sliced bread there, now; he led a whole group of them out with, like, baseball bats to go fight them.”

“Three cheers for humanity’s unwillingness to take any shit.”

“No kidding,” Caroline laughs. “Is Cisco Ramon there?”

Mick blinks. “Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?”

“No reason,” she says. “I’ve been emailing with him a bit. You remember how I did actually learn physics while I was back on, uh, _you know_?”

Len used to have a blast pretending that Krypton was an exclusive boarding school that Kara attended before going to regular school. 

“Yeah,” Mick says, not sure why she’s bringing it up. “So?”

“I was just thinking back to my old lessons on how the Phantom Zone was created,” she says. “A region where time doesn’t pass. They made it by disrupting a temporal anomaly.”

“Okay,” Mick says blankly. “That’s nice.”

“If my theory is right, and I’ve been consulting with our old ship AIs that you and Len stole for us so I really think I’m on the right track here, but the disruption of the temporal anomaly would actually occur _before_ any impact of the discharge, because the temporal anomaly would automatically spread to five minutes before and after the –” 

“Caroline,” Mick interrupts. “Please tell me you’ve got a point.”

She laughs. “I think,” she says, her voice mischievous in a way that makes him think wistfully of Len, “that I’ve figured out a way to pull someone _out_ of the temporal anomaly disruption.”

“I thought everyone in the Phantom Zone was a criminal,” Mick says, frowning. “Why would you want to pull them out?”

“Not out of the Phantom Zone,” Caroline says. “Out of the _new_ temporal anomaly, Phantom Zone Part 2.”

“You really need to give that a new name.”

“Okay,” Caroline says. “Then how about we go for tradition and just keep calling it ‘The Vanishing Point’?”

Mick freezes. His brain’s not the best, he’ll be the first to admit it, but he’s also not as dumb as he likes to pretend. Pulling someone out of a disrupted temporal anomaly – where time is frozen – where time freezes _before_ the actual act that causes the disruption –

“You think you can get Len back,” he says, and he can’t recognize his voice.

“I think I can,” Caroline says. “Please tell me you got other-me’s number, and I’ll grill her for everything she’s got.”

“I told her to call me,” Mick says.

“Please tell me you didn’t make it creepy.”

Mick smirks. “Who, me?”

Caroline groans. 

“She got over it once I explained. I told her I’d connect her to you.”

“You’re the _best_ , Mick,” she says, and it still surprises him after all these years that she really, honestly means it.

“You too, duckling.”

“I’m nearly thirty years old! I am not a duckling!”

“You’ll always be my duckling,” Mick says. 

“Yeah, well,” Caroline says. “Quack to you, too.”

“No,” Mick says. “You’re the PhD, which makes you the quack.”

He hangs up before she can start yelling at him.

Then, feeling a lot better about the world, he starts walking off to a bar, and under his breath he starts humming “Sweet Caroline”.

Good times never seemed so good, indeed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Sweet Caroline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130277) by [nirejseki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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